Some vindication by a panel of economists at the WSJ...

...although you wouldn't know it from the title they slapped on it. They seem to have a different definition of "stimulus" which I generally take to be a word that refers to output.

1. Jan Hatzius, Goldman Sachs sas GDP will take a short term hit but the long term boost to GDP will exceed the short term hit.

2. Mark Vitner, Wells Fargo says the exact same thing. Short term reduction but more than that will be boosted in 2013 as a result of the storm.

3. Gregory Daco and Nigel Gault, IHS Global Insight, David Greenlaw, Morgan Stanley and Michael Feroli, J.P. Morgan Chase do not take a position on how GDP will fall out in the end. Daco and Gault acknowledge there will be rebuilding activity, but suggest that it's unclear whether that will crowd out other activity. I think in a depression that is a bizarre thing to suggest. But they still don't say it's definitely a loss to GDP. They say "there's no guarantee".

All five agree with me that this is not a net good for the economy and that it reduces our wealth and standard of living.

So by my count, none of them come out supporting Don Boudreaux, two of them support me, and three say we can't be sure.